Mahela Jayawardene was seldom seen sledging or even having a word in excitement with the opposition players. Years after retiring from international cricket he has revealed that he had done his fair share of sledging mostly when they toured South Africa under the leadership of Marvan Atapattu. According to him, sledging is the part and parcel of the game and it all good till in limits.

The 40-year-old is currently enjoying his time away from cricket but is always involved with T20 leagues around the world. He is the head coach of the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Mumbai Indians and the Khulna Titans in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL). MI also won their third title earlier this year in his maiden stint at the helm. Mahela, during his playing days, was a class act and was the vital cog in the Sri Lankan line-up for more than a decade.

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Jayawardene reveals interesting facts

In a program named BBDO Lanka which is hosted by Santosh Menon, Jayawardene revealed some interesting facts about sledging. He also accepted that he has had a go at few players during his career in order to frustrate them. However, he recalled a funny incident which took a serious turn afterwards during their tour to South Africa. He also stated that the sledging done by the team was in response to their opposition and they had to give it back.

“The South African series pretty much was a tough one. It did cross the line because we realised that it was like an organised way of them doing it (sledging). Even with the broadcaster and how they went about saying things. So the first Test we took a bad hit and we were down after losing it in three days. We had a meeting and said we cannot play like this. Skillfully we were matching them but we were struggling against the abuse we were getting from them,” he mentioned of the first Test and the sledging that the Proteas did to them.

He continued and revealed how they planned to give it back to the hosts. “So we identified five guys in their team who were coming at us and we had a plan and we went after those 5 guys in the second Test. It was really bad and one of them was Gibbs and he was in tears by the time he came to bat in the second innings. He actually walked to Sanath to ask the players to stop (sledging). Then after that Test match, I think the South African coach and the captain came and said Guys lets stop this.”

But the veteran refused to divulge the exact words with which they abused the Proteas cricketers. “If we wanted to give something back, we knew exactly how to give it,” he said.

Mahela also said that he had frustrated Glenn Maxwell once by slowing the game down in a T20 International but then sorted things out by talking to him after the game.

Watch the full video here:

Mahela Jayawardena talks about how Sri Lanka exploited mental frailties of opposing players and the South African tour where they responded to sledging by sledging back.A Chat-athon discussion